


Scram

by jazzfic



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their home is full of holes. (Cats have feelings, too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scram

**Author's Note:**

> Buttercup!fic. I really have no idea what made me write this. For the serious lack of irony, or crack, or...anything, I apologise.

I gaze at my reflection and it gazes back, unwavering and silent. I'm almost waiting for those eyes to react of their own doing, to pivot, blink, look away while I remain frozen, but of course nothing happens. I don't know what made me crawl over here anyway, except I'd already completed twelve laps around the table and this seemed like a good place to end up. Then something knocks against the bowl and the surface breaks, the water rippling soundlessly, erasing my other half in a flash. She's clumsy sometimes, those boots that disappear so soundlessly into the trees always too large for the kitchen. They thud about with stiff awareness, on the edge of outright threatening, as if there's no room for the two of us and that _thud thump_ says it all. I feel her eyes on me, and shrink a little because I know what's coming. 

"Stupid cat."

I don't understand the words. It's just noise. I focus on her eyes instead and that's a language that works on any level. Her expression is like a tail thickening, the square face of a dog that wants to get at the furry creature behind the window. They tell me to react and suffer the consequences, so I turn to my best defence and dart away.

"That's right, scram...go make friends with a snake."

She stops by the table, closes her eyes. The thudding stops, the kitchen grows silent. She rests her head in her hands.

I haven't gone far. I hide in the shadows, watching. I don't understand the words. I wish she understood me. 

 

 

We aren't so alone. There's the other one here now. The one that keeps her company and startles the house awake every morning by making noises on the table and dropping white powder to the floor (it tastes of nothing and sticks to my nose). He has a body that radiates warmth. In the big room there's a large resting place that they retire to once the sun disappears each day, and I go there to sit by his foot after the lights are dimmed and the fire has died down. I wait for him to meet my gaze, for his lips to tweak at one corner. His hand shifts from the paper he's holding and I take my cue, leaping up quickly, padding at the soft, round part of his thigh and ignoring her growl of annoyance. I hear the rumble from his throat and chest; it feels good, open, welcoming. He pets the line of my back and I whisk my tail and hum, half-wanting to lie down and half-wanting to swipe an open claw at his daring. He has bleed before, I know this. I won't open new wounds.

Her body makes a dip towards me. She's studying the pair of us with the same narrowed eyes. Her mouth moves. "It's late, Peeta. Don't encourage the damn thing."

"What, like this?" And he strokes my cheek where it's fat and the fur sticks out. I use that fur to puff and hiss at the strange winged things that rest in flocks down the road, that honk in my presence, livid and pink and ugly. They would peck me apart if that big stick and wavering shout of an old, familiar voice didn't come at them and make them fly to all corners of the yard. I observe them at a teasing distance. Their human, with his confused gait and watery eyes, is like a tree waiting to topple over. 

She grunts now, and this time I lean into the hand, crinkle my whiskers so they run along the lines of his skin, tanned to the wrist, still covered with tiny flecks of white he can't see. She makes a noise in her throat that means nothing and I open an eye to see her lean against him. Her face hides like mine. We both hide and curl into something that's solid and happy and restful between us. He doesn't know, of course; he's willing, like the fire, to burn and provide where the rest of us can't.

I turn around, once, twice, then circle into a ball. He'll let me stay there until the coals go black, but all too soon she regains herself, peels her face from his shirt and slips away. It's a sound of sleep, and I think it scares her.

 

 

Sometime during the third or fourth winter I am given a blanket in an old straw basket. My home is full of holes, and shoved into a corner where I am to share space with bottles full of red smelly things drowned in something sour, and boxes full of brown smelly things pulled from the soil. It is cold in there. I don't like it, and cry to be let out. She lures me with trickery, a dish of cream because I need the fat, I crave the taste, and I never learn. When she disappears outside I brace myself and endure the indignity of a sharp hole in the floorboards, and I emerge onto the grass covered in red dust and cobwebs. I spend hours in the midday sun, licking myself right. When the familiar staggered footsteps make their way to the front door I weave around his shoes and mew as if we've been parted for years. He drops a hand near his knee and I show off by rising onto my hind legs and butting it with enthusiasm. That always does the trick. I'm rewarded with scraps of tasty white flesh, cooled from the tall box they keep all their good things in. Food is good. Its goodness is universal. He calls me by my name, tells me _I'm_ good. Good puss, everything good. We communicate like this in short bursts, our complicated lives truncated into grunts and scratches that mean as much as we need them to. I like it.

Does he remember her, I wonder? The little one? Her scent was my mother's scent, sweet, grass rich and milky white. She rescued me and protected me with a wall of bright yellow hair, a bit of lace around my neck, ticking me. I would suckle at her finger while doing kitten battles with her thumb, pouncing onto her neck from high places when she wasn't looking so that she would scream and bring her angry shadow with the flashing eyes to find out what game we were playing. I understand disappearance. I understand where my mother went (to the water), or my siblings (to the dirt, buried, dark). I hid from the moving shapes that came my way but stayed brave when her warm face pressed itself into me, cooing sweetly, giving me a name. I would turn small in her arms, loom large when danger approached. I remember her here, and hate her gone. I don't have to wonder to know they feel the same.

He takes my bowl away when I've licked it clean and pets me quickly. "Better scram," he says, and looks over to the door. His eyes are bright. He's anticipating something, his whole body hums with it. I don't move, I wash a paw lazily instead and eye her as she comes inside, bringing the air in with her, clean and cool and happy. She's happy. They both are.

"How was your day?" 

"It was okay, I guess." She speaks softly, tiredly. "Well. As you can see..." 

They meet at the table where she tosses down a brace of creatures, dropping fur and feathers, smeared darkly with blood. The smell lingers thickly, tempting me to move and try for a distraction. I think of the bed, empty and cold, and stay where I am. They meet, silently, looking at one another, not speaking. They duck their heads, entwine their fingers. They press into each other, seeking warmth, like I do. For a long time all is still and then he says something that makes her smile and hit him on the shoulder, and they step apart quickly and go about making noise with pots and ladles, the quiet broken. 

She forgets me that night, forgets her anger. I'm let onto his lap with a fiery glint and tiny smile. She calls me ridiculous, then she says her sister's name. Suddenly the air changes around us. Something I recognise gleams and spills unbidden from her eyes. I try to jump away because the change brings out the fear in me, but I feel her hands falling onto me, sudden and gripping sharp with need, and his on top. I'm trapped, I can smell my mother again. 

I purr like a storm.

 

 

I grow to accept my new home. The holes are patched up and time passes and soon little feet find their way around the bottles and boxes, and moist faces covered in frosting stare into my slow, blinking eyes. Unlike others I know of, these voices learn fast, accept without distrust, and they toy with my name and squeal it about the house like a song. 

She still calls me _cat_ , though, but that's okay. She'll be the only one that ever can.


End file.
